Pope Francis: Humility saves us from the Evil One and from being his accomplices

In the General Audience this Wednesday, May 22, Pope Francis reflected on a virtue that is at the root of the Christian life, humility, that which “saves us from the evil one.”

When addressing the faithful present in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, the Holy Father specified that this virtue “is the great antagonist of the most deadly of vices, that is, pride.”

“While pride and arrogance swell the human heart, making us seem more than we are, Humility returns everything to its proper dimension: we are wonderful but limited creatures, with virtues and defects.”

Later, he highlighted that “delusions of omnipotence, very dangerous, often arise in the human heart, and this does us a lot of harm.”

Therefore, to free us from pride, the Holy Father invited us to “contemplate a starry sky to rediscover the right measure.”

“Blessed are the people who keep in their hearts this perception of their own smallness: these people are preserved from an ugly vice, arrogance,” he explained.

According to the Pontiff, humility “is the basis of those that follow: in fact, meekness, mercy, purity of heart arise from that interior feeling of smallness. Humility is the gateway to all virtues.”

As a concrete example of humility, Pope Francis proposed to the Virgin Mary: “the chosen heroine is not a little queen raised in cotton, but an unknown girl.”

“Not even the most sacred truth of his life becomes a cause for boasting. We can imagine that she also knew difficult times, days when her faith advanced in the darkness. But this never made her humility waver, which in Mary was a granite virtue,” she stressed.

The Holy Father also stressed “that humility is everything,” that which “saves us from the evil one and the danger of becoming his accomplices,” as well as “the source of peace in the world and in the Church.”

“Where there is no humility there is war, there is discord, there is division. God has given us an example of it in Jesus and Mary, for our salvation and happiness. Humility is the way and the path to salvation,” he concluded.

Pope Francis asks for vocations and an end to wars

At the end of his catechesis, Pope Francis addressed a special greeting to the children who are making their First Communion during this month of May. Addressing them, he encouraged them to see the need of their contemporaries, who suffer the consequences of war.

Likewise, when greeting a group of novices present in the square, the Holy Father lamented the lack of vocations in Italy and therefore invited the faithful to pray for their increase.

Finally, the Holy Father stated that “we need peace” and asked not to forget the “martyred Ukraine, which suffers so much,” as well as Palestine and Israel. “Let this war stop,” he asserted.

He also prayed not to forget Myanmar and so many countries suffering from conflict. “We need to pray for peace in this time of world war,” said Pope Francis.